Sun, sand and sea… Phuket, here we come! (Part 2)

We woke up early today for our island hopping trip! The adults were excited, the kids were excited, everyone was excited. We prepared and packed all the necessary stuffs the night before so that we would not missed out any important items, then we headed off for our lazy breakfast.

Guess it was too early, most of us can’t really stomached the hearty breakfast. After we were done with filling in partial of our stomach with some food, we went to the resort lobby for someone to picked us up. We signed up with Dolphin Seaways for the day trip to Phi Phi Islands. When we reached Dolphin Seaways Pier, we were given a short briefing and free sea sick pills, just in case any of us get sea sick. I find this very well planned and organised as compared to the previous tour group we went to few years back. The waiting lounge was cosy too, with a singer providing relaxing songs for you. (Pics taken from their website)

Announcement was made to proceed to board the boat. The kids and the adults were all thrilled! The crew onboard with us were very entertaining. They were such a jokers! You won’t get bored on the boat ride with them. Unfortunately because of the monsoon season, the boat ride to our first island wasn’t smooth. My girl eventually puked on the boat. But the crews were very quick to help us out by cleaning us up and entertaining the little one. The rest of the tour members showing concerns to the little one as well.

Finally, we reached our first stop: Maya Bay where “The Beach” was filmed here. We quickly hopped off the boat and get the steady feel of the ground. The kids took their beach toys and started playing with the sand and water while the adults busy with taking pictures and enjoying the view and the sea breeze.

The kids get to make new friends during the tour!

Next, we moved on to sight seeing: Monkey Beach & Viking Cave. While moving off from Maya Bay, I was trying to take a picture of the beach in full view and guess what I caught in my camera instead? Everyone on board was laughing away while he was busy showing off his “muscles” in different poses.

Look at the monkeys at the Monkey Beach. Someone even treated one of them a coke! Can you spot it?

The head of the crew member was really attentive to the kids. He was worried that the kids can’t catch a good look of the monkeys, hence carried them up and sat on the “roof” of the boat.

Over here is the Viking Cave. The cave is located north of Piley Bay on the east coast of Phi Phi Ley. The cave was so named, due to the prehistoric drawings that were found on the cave walls that resemble ancient viking ships. If you are wondering where Thai people got their bird’s nest from. Here it is. Within the cave there are lots of ledges which are inhabited by thousands of birds called swifts. These birds make their nests out of their own saliva, the nests are harvested and later sold to make birds nest soup, a Chinese delicacy. In order to collect the valuable bird’s nests from inside the cave, the local workers will risk their lives by climbing on the unstable looking bamboo scaffolding to reach the nests.

Not far away from the Viking Cave, we stopped at a spot where we were given flippers and snorkelling equipments. Anyone who is interested can snorkel around the area and take a closer look at the fishes in the sea. As for the children, they were busy feeding the fishes and the bread were sponsored by the crew.

After snorkelling, we went to the Amazing Pileh Lagoon (Blue Lagoon) where we get to jump off the boat to swim in it. It is a great swimming place in some of the clearest waters in the world.

It’s lunch time! We were all famished after all the swimming. The package included a buffet lunch and we had our fill before heading off to another island for sand, sun and sea! That’s the last stop that we will be going and the island is called Bamboo or Khai Island. The water is really clear and we get to see and feed the fishes within our sight and reach!

Following the feeding, the kids were back to their sand play again! They were so happy and easily satisfied with just the few sand toys and the beach. Life of a kid is definitely much better than an adult!

Before we head off back to Phuket, the kids get to take turn to “drive” the boat. The little one looking a bit nervous here though…whlie we hanged on tight to the bars at the side of the boat!

When we reached the pier, we were treated with ice-cream! Both the adults and kids were all happy and satisfied before heading back to hotel.

All in all, we had an awesome experiences with the entire crew. The crew made sure we were all well taken care of, and were always willing to take pictures and video when they were asked to. Oh, they had a photographer cum videographer following us, to take pictures and videos of the trip. They had it all compiled into DVDs for sale for the trip, but we were not pressured to purchase one.

We loved this trip. The crew was very friendly and informative (they provided us some history lessons during the trip!). You don’t have to worry not having enough water to drink in this hot weather as they provided us free soda, free waters, and even cut fruits! This is well worth it and is the best experience for the adults and the kids.

A great day on the water with a mixture of snorkeling, swimming, relaxing and not forgetting sand play! 🙂

By the time we reached our resort, it was already almost dinner time. We quickly took a quick shower and head out searching for food! We took a simple dinner at a nearby restaurant to charged up ourselves as we were targeting to go in search for the street food stalls which we passed by when we were on the way to the pier during the day. The first stall we spotted was the pancake food stall. The smell of the pancake was really enticing and the kids were aiming at their banana choc pancake. We bought 1 to try. It was really yummy indeed!

It was quite a long walk before we spotted the “hawker stalls”. We saw many different groups of people sitting along the street with their mat while enjoying the sea breeze and the sumptuous food bought from the stalls.

Bet you all know about the famous and authentic dessert from Thailand: sticky rice with mango. We found a stall selling that and we bought 2 packets back to enjoy as our supper. Thinking that it will be small packet like what we usually get in Singapore (little bit of rice and a slice of mango) but, OH MY GOSH, their serving was really huge. They served in a huge squarish styrofoam box with the whole mango and a big pack of coconut milk. I think the Thai people treat this as a meal while we treat this as a dessert.

Gotten our favourite food and so we headed back to our resort for our supper to satisfy our cravings and a good night sleep. The kids were totally worn out and so were the adults.